JPA bridge fallout: Is Shamrock Road dangerous now?

Few may miss this old thing, but folks on Shamrock Road are bearing the brunt of its replacement.

photo by Hawes Spencer

When Charlottesville resident Lora Kelly and her husband, Eric, purchased a house on Shamrock Road in 2009, its two lanes and mish-mash of missing stretches of sidewalk already created a fear factor. But a momentous April included the City's closure of nearby Jefferson Park Avenue and the arrival of the couple's first child.

Kelly recounts a recent incident in which she was crossing the street in front of their house with a stroller. While one car stopped for her, the one behind it raced around and almost struck her.

"I would say the road is very dangerous now," says Kelly, who notes there are lots of pedestrians and children on the street but not much in the way of traffic signs or speed humps.

A new $5.8 million bridge slated to replace the nearly 80-year-old structure won't be completed until September 2012. While City traffic engineers prepared for the bridge closure by speeding up a schedule to install a traffic signal at the intersection of Shamrock Road and JPA and upgrading the traffic signal at Shamrock and Cherry Avenue to include mast arms, pedestrian actuation/signals, and ADA-compliant curb ramps, Kelly says the street simply wasn't designed for the traffic it's now carrying.

"There is no break in traffic now, and people don't necessarily stop anymore," says Kelly. "I feel like placing traffic cones in the road."

Shamrockians (and through-drivers) may be forgiven for frustration. After all, the street was already in the midst of a lane-closing, traffic-snarling underground utility project when the bridge shut-down suddenly began dumping thousands more vehicles into the mix.

The speed limit on the road is 25mph (a new 15mph sign was installed at a sharp corner), but Kelly says the heavy traffic seems to be moving more like 40mph. In the mornings, says Kelly, the traffic is usually backed up past their house from JPA.

"I'm sure the city knew this was going to be a problem," says Kelly, "but it seems like barely any prep work was put into ensuring Shamrock would be a place people could live without fear of being hit every time they try to take their newborn for a walk."

"City staff has been monitoring traffic conditions on Shamrock Road for quite some time in anticipation of the JPA Bridge closure," says City traffic engineer Jeanie Alexander. In addition to hastening the signaling projects, she says "numerous" speed limit and curve-warning signs were installed, along with new paving and striping to widen the railroad track crossing, and curb ramps and crosswalks have been improved.

"Would two more speed limit and curve signs count as numerous?" Kelly asks, asserting that the ones added are difficult to see, and that she and her family live on a section of the street with a blind curve.

Alexander says the approach to Shamrock at Cherry Avenue will be re-striped to include a turn lane, with the traffic signal improved to include an overlap phase to allow simultaneous turning in two directions in an attempt to unclog the intersection.

To make matters potentially worse, the City attempted to restrict parking on certain sections of the street, leaving room for traffic to race down the road, but nowhere for Shamrock Road residents like the Kellys to park, a proposal that was rejected by the neighborhood.

Besides, as one resident points out, there wasn't a problem in the area where the City wanted to restrict parking.

"The problem is between Stratford Court and the railroad tracks," says Jennifer Slate. "I have almost been hit by bigger cars and trucks several times because there are not two full-size lanes for traffic or bikes when cars are parked there."

Indeed, the road narrows considerably on that stretch, and there isn't a sidewalk on the JPA-bound direction.

"Maybe they did everything they could to make it better," says Kelly, "but many people who come over to our house remark how bad it is before I even say anything."

Kelly says she understands the necessity of having to use Shamrock while the JPA bridge is replaced, but she worries for the neighborhood.

"There have been two accidents on the road already," she says. "We support building the new bridge, but something needs to be done before something bad happens. This is just asking for trouble."

28 comments

shamrocker June 20th, 2011 | 8:25am

how about rail road signal lights at cherry/shamrock and jpa/shamrock that would alert motorists to the fact that the rr crossing is blocked at the moment by a passing train. there is so much traffic that when the train is present, almost the entire street from jpa to cherry is occupied by waiting cars for quite awhile. this is a safety problem for emergency vehicles if needed on shamrock, plus a major inconvenience to both the drivers and residents. it would also be useful even after the bridge project is finished.

also, speed humps are really needed as even 25mph is too fast considering the condition of the road (narrowness, amount of traffic, curves, pedestrians). they are present on other city streets.

finally, how about an enhanced speed enforcement zone (like avon st, etc), with higher fines and more police presence.
thanks.

Informed June 20th, 2011 | 9:19am

What do they want the City to do? All I read is complaining and no solutions.

The road was dangerous before the bridge was closed. It'll still be dangerous when the bridge is back open, probably more so, because there won't be the congestion to slow cars down. When you choose to live on a windy narrow road, these are the dangers you will encounter.

Quit trying to paint the City in a bad light.

i wonder June 20th, 2011 | 9:33am

why don't you just put the child in your car and take it somewhere safer for a walk? simple solution that requires a little more effort on your part. walking your child in a stroller under conditions that you deem dangerous seems negligent on your part. other than that, you could move somewhere with nice safe cul-de-sac roads - you chose to live in a congested area.

SB June 20th, 2011 | 9:35am

I feel bad for them, but there's really not a lot of other options for in-town traffic. I agree the city should have better prepared Shamrock. Our neighborhood is bearing a burden too, since the other road that is heavily traveled because of the bridge is Stribling Extended. We live at the end of Stribling, and the traffic, formerly light, is now heavy, and people come FLYING down the road to take Stribling Extended back to Fontaine. I'm at the point where I am about to start yelling at the speeders. The gravel road was not designed for the traffic it is handling now, same as Shamrock. What irritates me the most is that the city didn't designate any detours, the spokesman was quoted as saying "we'll let the traffic find its own way." The other main problem is that the bridge should not take 18 months to build - couldn't they have put in a prefabricated one? I talked to one of the workers, and he said they have to stop work every time a train comes through, which seems like a bad way to get things done...

shamrocker June 20th, 2011 | 9:45am

@un-informed. proposed solutions were posted above. this is not complaining, nor trying to paint the city in a bad light (although there are many complaints that could be made--inadequate notification and communication to residents, use of private off-street parking for staging areas for roadwork without authorization, poor coordination and communication among involved parties:city, contractors, vdot, etc.)

also, a problem not only for residents, but for all who use the street.

so informed, perhaps do your part, and not drive on a "dangerous road".

BK Fan June 20th, 2011 | 11:15am

The main question I have is this a piddly little bridge their replacing, why does it take 18 months? Wouldn't 3 or 4 months seem like a more reasonable time to do this. The golden gate bridge was built in 4 years. Makes no sense.

cvllelaw June 20th, 2011 | 11:20am

I don't understand how it can possibly take 18 months to replace that little bridge. So you have to stop work when a train comes through. They are on a schedule; you should be able to know when that will be and schedule your work accordingly. And if you need to work on something uninterruptedly for a few hours, with a little forethought and planning and coordination with the railroad, that should be doable.

Frustrated June 20th, 2011 | 12:19pm

I think everyone in the area is a bit frustrated, but there really is little to be done. The best thing to hope for is that all individuals utilizing Shamrock will use there best judgement so that everyone can travel safely for the next 14 months. As a nearby community member I too am inconvenienced by the necessity to utilize Shamrock, but I would hate for my frustration to turn into a dangersous situation for someone else. So we should all take some deep breaths and slow down!

On the note of choosing to live in a congested area: Charlottesville is not a major city. The traffic around Shamrock does not really qualify it as Manhattan. One should not have to live in the country to go for a walk. The sidwalkless roads coupled with faster cars present just as dangerous of a situation. A mother should be able to take her child on a stroller walk by her house. In fact many individauls choose to live in the city for its walkability. The idea of driving somewhere to walk for many individuals is an absurd concept. Just because everyone does not chose to live in sprawling suburb developments does not mean they do not deserve the right to safely walk there child down the street.

Angel Eyes June 20th, 2011 | 3:07pm

The amount of sheer goldbrickery going on in public projects boggles the mind. As another poster points out, a few months should suffice if they'd just work straight through on it. Hoover Dam was built in 3 years fer gawd's sake. The absence of a proper grid of streets to interconnect parts of town is felt when some project like this goes down. In the twenties they'd have built the abutments, trucked in a prefab bridge, and had the whole thing set up in 2 weeks. But, hey, it's still better world anyway, isn't it? After all we have the net and twitter so we can make fools of ourselves even if we can't build a simple road improvement anymore.

dg June 20th, 2011 | 6:14pm

So did VDoT finish west bound 64 yet? When they finish that I could switch and come in the backway..........Hate whining........city and VDot really screwed the pooch once again, but we knew that.......Do you really want speed bumps your whining will get them and of that I am sure!

Lets boycott Shamock screw up JPA Downtown and 64 west !!!!!

Morris Shifflett June 20th, 2011 | 8:57pm

I walked across the JPA construction project, to get to Durty Nellys. It is amazing to me that the Army in WWII could build a bridge in less than 48 hours for tanks and thousands of 2.5 ton trucks, but a private contractor takes longer than the construction of the Pyramids and Stonehenge. All I saw was a bunch of fat rednecks sitting around, while two guys from south of the border were digging with shovels. We should bring back the CCC and TVA and put all those folks on unemployment to work building roads and bridges. Instead of wasting money on overpaid contractors.

jorsmith@aol.com June 20th, 2011 | 9:01pm

18 mts
hell it should take half that
who the hell bid on this job
bunch of posers
!@#$%

i know construction likes to over extend every job
but this is sad this is gouging the public

crazydriver June 20th, 2011 | 9:09pm

Personally I think almost the entire city of Charlottesville is not very pedestrian friendly. Most streets only have a sidewalk on one side or none at all. This city was not designed for walkers or baby strollers. And it gets worse in the county which was NEVER EVER intended to have walkers on the roads. I can drive in a bigger city or walk and it's way safer than walking or driving in Cville. C'ville is like dodging bullets, and those horrible speed humps, who thought of those???
They are like an insult to drivers, and its because they are there to protect the walkers that have no place to walk safely. Its can be best summed up in oen word...laughable!

Montagna June 20th, 2011 | 9:13pm

People are stopping on the tracks when the short-cycle light at JPA doesn't let enough cars through (in the morning). Not good, this could end up with a train wreck.

Montagna June 20th, 2011 | 9:16pm

The bridge has been crumbling for years, the Sunset connector should have been expedited.

Also, a quick fix would be to remove some of the ridiculous grassy median on Fontaine to allow a left turn from Stribling extended to Fontaine for people without SUV's. If you have an SUV or pickup, just run over the median, it shouldn't be there.

Big Hoss June 20th, 2011 | 10:42pm

Stribling extended used to be a great place for a run or walk in the morning, especially after a light winter snow. Now, no more for it is simply too dangerous. Just wait until the winter when we have some snowstorms. My ride can handle Stribling Extended easily, but I drive slowly on it and have had people riding right on my tail several times which is very irritating.

I certainly feel for some of the local businesses. Carmelos picked an awful time to move and who knows what is going on with Atlas Coffee. Will Frys Spring Pizza even make it? Oh, and football season should be interesting as well.

It is good to repair old infrastructure, and hopefully such replacements will help create much needed jobs down the road all across the country, but the next 15 months will require lots of adjustments and inconveniences for sure!

SB June 20th, 2011 | 11:14pm

I am also very sad about the loss of Stribling Extended - we used to walk there every morning, no more. It's hard not to feel resentful of all the non-neighborhood people tearing up the road, right now it is full of trenches from people bottoming out and getting stuck trying to make it up the hill by the substation. As far as the businesses, Frys Spring seems to be doing fine, but I don't know about the others...the convenience store and Hoos Brew especially seem to be hurting.

jpa resident June 21st, 2011 | 1:41am

both options are horrible and skinny and dangerous. the city should have at least paved stribling if not widened and paved it. that bridge is 60 ft long. 18 months is beyond excessive

Walt June 21st, 2011 | 7:19am

"Also, a quick fix would be to remove some of the ridiculous grassy median on Fontaine to allow a left turn from Stribling extended to Fontaine for people without SUV's. If you have an SUV or pickup, just run over the median, it shouldn't be there."

Under that median are the tracks for the old streetcar system. They are under the pavement of West Main Street as well, and University Ave. See, there used to be an appreciation of capital intensive investment in transportation technologies that served pubic and private interests.

I don't see much "forward thinking" in our community today. We're still building with 1950s priorities. Get every man in his own car.

Jz June 21st, 2011 | 9:54am

If a car stops for somebody to cross and the car behind it drives into the oncoming traffic lane and almost hits the pedestrian it doesn't mean the road isn't safe, it means Charlottesville is full of a-holes.

They're the same people who try to pass motorists when they pull over for an oncoming emergency vehicle.

pete June 21st, 2011 | 10:02am

walt,
the streetcars never ran down Fontaine. they came down JPA and crossed the traintracks just west of the JPA bridge on their way to fry's Spring.

Walt June 21st, 2011 | 10:46am

thanks. You're right. I was reading too quickly and without the benefit of enough coffee while thinking about the JPA bridge.

In any case, we need more transportation options and to embrace other transportation technologies besides cars.

AJF June 21st, 2011 | 11:13am

Stribling Ext. is a county road, the City doesn't need to pave it. Shamrock has always been a pain in the neck. Especially just after the tracks. JPA bridge had a structural feasability rating of 2 out of 100. It is not a simple fix, the bridge needs to be fully rebuilt. It is being widened to allow for better pedestrian and bike traffic.

stratforder June 24th, 2011 | 5:36pm

I live on Stratford and I have to completely support all that shamrocker said:

@un-informed. proposed solutions were posted above. this is not complaining, nor trying to paint the city in a bad light (although there are many complaints that could be made--inadequate notification and communication to residents, use of private off-street parking for staging areas for roadwork without authorization, poor coordination and communication among involved parties:city, contractors, vdot, etc.)

also, a problem not only for residents, but for all who use the street.

so informed, perhaps do your part, and not drive on a "dangerous road".

Personally I think that making Shamrock and JPA into a regular stoplight made it even worse. There used to just be flashing yellow one way, flashing red another. Now you can't even turn right on red. It creates a very large backup and there is still as much confusion with the lights, like when the Shamrock light goes green you have the same line of traffic coming from Cherry side trying to go straight, right, and left all at the same time, being at odds with the Stadium side trying to do the same thing.
I've lived on this same block since 2004 and I never had a problem with the flashing lights - I'm not sure why the stoplight was supposed to be a better option (please tell me if you know why they did it). Seems like it just slowed down everything. Safety doesn't seemed to have changed.

Also, they were doing construction on Shamrock when the bridgework started, so they had just one-lane traffic on that area between Stratford and the train tracks, and let me tell you how terrible those backups were. To avoid that construction, I had been going over the bridge to get to Fontaine, but then they started the bridgework and for a while both were going on and it was such a dumb mistake. Also, when they were doing that work they would leave their equipment sitting for days in either places where residents used to park or on the street itself and just put cones around it. Just cones. In the street. The street is barely big enough for 2 cars as it is, and if you are driving even at the speed limit and come around that corner and part of the road is blocked off, it's going to be a bad surprise. And you should have seen how dirty it was. There was one poor car that every day was simply coated in DIRT from the work they did right outside that poor person's house. Dusty, dirty, gross, everywhere over there every day. I felt so sorry for the people who lived right there next to that construction.

And yes, the backups are terrible on Shamrock now because of the bridge. That light at Shamrock and JPA lasts for about 6 cars worth at most (like I said, they're all confused too because you have one line of traffic going in 3 different directions so not many people get through in one light turn), and cars will be backed up for blocks, all the way up to Stratford or sometimes farther.

Solutions?
1) Inform residents first. Ask for residential input before implementing plans. I had no idea all this stuff was going to happen until very shortly before it did from the roadwork signs, and had no idea how long it was supposed to last. I bet if we'd all gotten together first we'd have gotten some good ideas going.
2) Make sure the roads that people have to take instead can handle the influx of traffic. Here Shamrock and Stribling are really not able to handle it. If you see that as a problem, solve that problem first before starting work. Don't think along the lines of "we'll let the traffic find its own way."
3) Don't accept the bid for an 18-month project. Demand shorter. That is a ridiculous amount of time. I have also driven by it almost daily - during the day and at night - and see work not going on more than it is going on. Have people WORKING on that damn bridge.

I feel really sorry for the businesses over there, like Wayside. I can't imagine how badly that is impacting them. It just takes me longer to get somewhere or puts me in a little more danger when I drive on my street, but they're losing their main source of income for over a year.

Dog June 26th, 2011 | 7:50pm

Half of the Fat rednecks you saw sitting at the bridge were VDOT, Railway, city and county inspectors, the other half were engineers, a supervisor and a foreman, watching the two mexicans work as slowly as they can because without all of those inspectors and supervisor you end up with a mexicrete bridge that will collapse and have to be rebuilt in five years.

As for the bridge itself except for it's location it could have been put up in weeks using prefabed bridge parts, but because of its location and the whining and gnashing of teeth and renting of sack cloth that would occur from having ALL traffic blocked for a few days in all directions at that intersection and all of the business being closed because of the massive cranes that would be needed while the beams were being unloaded from the trucks and set. Which of course leaves little choice now.

Dog June 26th, 2011 | 7:50pm

Half of the Fat rednecks you saw sitting at the bridge were VDOT, Railway, city and county inspectors, the other half were engineers, a supervisor and a foreman, watching the two mexicans work as slowly as they can because without all of those inspectors and supervisor you end up with a mexicrete bridge that will collapse and have to be rebuilt in five years.

As for the bridge itself except for it's location it could have been put up in weeks using prefabed bridge parts, but because of its location and the whining and gnashing of teeth and renting of sack cloth that would occur from having ALL traffic blocked for a few days in all directions at that intersection and all of the business being closed because of the massive cranes that would be needed while the beams were being unloaded from the trucks and set. Which of course leaves little choice now.

prainva June 27th, 2011 | 4:18pm

Cant figure out why this should take until 09/2012. How about a PERFORMANCE BONUS on the contract, where the faster they do it the more they make? Just like the project on Georgetown Road that takes away half the the 5 bus service for those of us who live here. Any public comment on alternatives, ever?

Chistador June 27th, 2011 | 5:47pm

Whatever. Some jerk speeder ran over my cat. Now it would cost them $200 more if they ran over my cat again AND got caught, but the fact that it is now more expensive to speed doesn't seem to make people any less LIKELY to speed, and it damn sure didn't bring my cat back to life, and they don't even give me a cut of the speeding fines to buy a new cat with! I'll tell you what WOULD work: deputizing neighborhood residents and giving them radar/laser speed-guns with built-in cameras for shooting the license plates. Can you imagine the neighborhood grampas that would line up for this, sitting on a folding chair on the corner, keeping the neighborhood safe?